'EU in mortal danger'

Athens : Riot police stand in Athens on April 4, 2012 during clashes with demonstrators. An elderly man shot himself in the head on Wednesday in Athens' central Syntagma Square, a focal point of anti-austerity protests, reportedly crying out that he did not want to leave his children in debt. (AFP Photo / Aris Messinis) / AFP

The recent suicide of a cash-strapped Greek pensioner is a sign of the dire situation Greece finds itself in. It can be solved only by extreme measures such as default and giving up the euro, believes financial advisor Patrick Young.

“The Greek government is bankrupt. It cannot afford to stay in the euro and pay its debts,” says Young, executive director of investment consultancy DV Advisors.

A 77-year-old retired pharmacist fatally shot himself outside the Greek parliament in Athens on Wednesday. In a suicide note he said that he refused to “search garbage for food and become a burden for my child.”

It is a ghastly situation that Greek people are now forced to kill themselves to avoid poverty, Young told RT. “Unfortunately, everybody quite simply within Greek politics and a huge number of the politicians within the European Union must stand accused of effectively leaving their citizens to starve to death.”

Nevertheless, Greek politicians are the highest-paid in the EU, stresses Young. Some of them make €15,000 per month “which is enough to pay for dozens of pensioners every month in new austerity Greece.”

The European Union is in mortal danger if does not get its act together, Young claims, saying that the EU needs to see an outbreak of government. “What we need now is leadership. Let’s not see any more marchers. Let’s do something that solves the problem instead of leading to more summits, more austerities.”

In Italy, a 78-year-old woman jumped out of her third-floor apartment on Tuesday after her monthly pension was cut from €800 to €600. Since the 25 per cent cut, the pensioner from Sicily had reportedly been struggling to make ends meet.

“Clearly she trusted the government with her pension money. And that frankly is an absolutely ridiculous thing these days because governments within the European Union are just not trustworthy,” Young said.